


Interview

by Schgain



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Director's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 15:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8166649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: When Lucretia's prized reclaimers bring in three more souls than anticipated, she is at first enraged. Appalled, secondly, that they'd compromise the Lunar Base like this. And thirdly, furious that they hadn't warned her. (Fourthly, somewhat impressed that Magnus is carrying a fully-grown centaur across his shoulders like he's a babe lamb. Credit, she supposes, where it's due.)---The Director gets to know three potential new recruits through a series of increasingly stressful conversations with them.





	

_"At the end of the day, I want to do good because it is the right thing to do, and not because someone else told me to."_

It's not _technically_ part of the procedure, and it's _definitely_ not official. But she likes to know, earnestly, who she is trusting to do her work for her. She is, after all, the Director. 

When her prized reclaimers bring in three more souls than anticipated, she is at first enraged. Appalled, secondly, that they'd compromise the Lunar Base like this. And thirdly, furious that they hadn't warned her. 

(Fourthly, somewhat impressed that Magnus is carrying a fully-grown centaur across his shoulders like he's a babe lamb. Credit, she supposes, where it's due.) 

Warning or not, they barrel into the docking bay and out of the glass bubble all the while yelling at each other indiscriminately. The room absolutely reeks- while the Moonbase is by no means a sterile hospital, she does at least try to maintain a clean environment. How her boys manage to stink up the place with their unbathed man bodies immediately is lost on her. Their voices are a horrible cacophony of indistinct swears and ‘I told you so’s, a consistent argumentative presence that has been both missed and abjured at the Bureau’s proportionately quiet halls. They call for Her, and for Killian, and for any healer on duty. And when the Director is called, she comes. 

She finds her entire team of reclaimers still trying to sort things out, even more frantic than usual. Merle is trying desperately to hold everyone in stable condition as well as supporting something on his back (In the chaos, all she can see is a maroon ball curled tightly in on itself). Taako levitates a half-elf dressed in acolyte robes, who is seemingly doing their best impression of a dead man's float, and of course Magnus is holding the most evident of the three strangers, a roan centaur whose back hooves are bent in a most sickening angle. These three smell too, like blood and hay and salt. If the Director looked in the mirror and saw herself green in the face, she would not be surprised.

There is no time for this, though! The Director reacts immediately, already pulling together the facts she knows to put a procedure in order. "Get these six to medical!" she yells to Avi, who thankfully springs into action and calls into his stone of farspeech for the Healers to prepare.

"Oh, no, we're fine, Director! But these good folks need treatment!" says Magnus. He gestures, as best as he can, to the centaur across his shoulders. It’s a peculiar roll of his head kind of gesture, one that The Director takes a moment to file away in the cabinetry of her mind devoted entirely to the strange happenstances of her three reclaimers.

But, instead of making notice of her constant bewilderment of even the boys’ most minor of interactions, she pinches the bridge of her nose and waves. "Anyone-- get those to medical and put them under maximum security! You three: my office, as soon as those are secure." She’s forgotten her staff- otherwise she’d stamp it against the tile resoundingly.

Instead she storms off without any further ado on the goings-on around her, robes fluttering behind with all the regality they provide.

\---

Thankfully it's not long that Merle first peeks into her study’s doorway, followed by Magnus and Taako’s hesitant eyes. "Madame Director?" he says, perhaps in a voice he considers discrete. She looks up from her paperwork, something that she had before been unable to focus on and now is presenting as an entirely lost cause she’ll have to pin to some poor other bureaucrat under her. The boys file into her room and stand, quite awkwardly she notes, with their hands clasped in front of them like a trio of admonished children. 

"Sit." she barks. Three chairs scoot unbidden from the corner of her study to behind the boys. They sit. "What the _hell_ happened out there? Who are they? Do you realize how much information you have just compromised simply by bringing them here? If anything, do you at least have the Relic?" 

"We have the relic," Magnus says with his hands up, as if calming a skittish animal. When it fails to calm her even the slightest, he avoids her incensed gaze and scratches at his stubble.

"If there's one thing we've got, it's the Barrier Lock." Taako laughs and holds up his Umbra Staff; sure enough the Lock is hanging on the end of it. "Can't seem to shake this bad boy!" 

The Director rubs her temples. "Right. Well. Who are the people you brought in? Are they enemies? Allies? Were they after the Relic, for Selûne’s sake?"

"They're friends. They kept Ryan away from the Lock, by some means or another. I dunno if they wanted the Relic for themselves or anything, but I think it would have been way worse off if Ryan had gotten it." Merle says. His voice is much more suited to placating, and the Director is dismayed at herself for finding it working. Be it through good news or the dwarf’s aura, The Director sighs a very long sigh. That, at least, is good news.

"Yeah, I don't think they were in the Keeper of Keys' house for the Barrier Lock, specifically. They just sorta got caught in the crossfire is all." Taako gestures with the hand not holding the Umbra Staff to convey exactly what he means. To her, “what” he means is unbeknownst. 

“Their names. Please.” The Director says with all the urgency she can muster. These three are going to be the death of her.

"Their names are, uh, one's King." Magnus puts his hand out at about shoulder-height to indicate the smallest of the three. “That’s the one Merle was giving a piggy-back ride to when we came in.” 

"The wizard's Sea Salt!" Taako interjects with a snap of his fingers.

"These names all sound fake." says The Director. 

 

"The centaur's name was pretty legit. Todd or something." Magnus shrugs. "You're not gonna, like, feed them to the Voidfish, are you? ‘Cause they did help us out and all." 

"The Voidfish doesn't eat people, thank Selûne, or cleaning its tank would be a nightmare, and Johan wouldn’t even be a fond memory. We're just going to ask the three interlopers some questions first, and then… Then go from there, I don’t know guys. Try not to kidnap anyone else from now on, okay?" She sighs and rubs her face. "Let's go destroy the Barrier Lock before we go any further."

The boys nod in unison and thankfully question her no more.

\---

"Thank you," she says in lieu of a greeting, "for being so patient. And our deepest apologies for having to confiscate your belongings temporarily; it was either that or tie you to a chair, and I’ve met enough rogues to know that you'd get out of that one soon enough." she gives herself a quiet chuckle at the thought of something she's certainly learned through trial and error. 

The half-orc halfling (a combination she admittedly has not seen before) looks warily at her, and she can't say she blames them. After all, this is what they’ve woken up to considering they’d been rescued from no doubt an unpleasant encounter that left them unconscious and bloodied. They’re in a strange room, with a strange lady, with nothing on their person- she's been there. She knows. So, if it helps, she brings with her a familiarity: the halfling's clothes, mended and laundered. They are still warm to the touch, and smell pleasantly of flowers. 

"Med bay pajamas are not the most comforting, I know." she says, and bends down to hand them to her sitting guest. They hug their neatly folded articles to their chest. "Still, I politely request that you refrain from changing right in front of me." she offers a small smile. 

They nod, but they don't return the smile nor verbally respond, opting instead to look down at the folded stack of their clothes resting in their arms. 

"There’s one last thing before we continue as well. I'm sorry we can't make it official, but I'd like you to drink this." Director pulls a vial out of her robe- the indigo ichor within leaves a thin film over the glass. It does not look at all appetizing. The halfling makes a face. 

"Yes, I know." she hands it to them with what she hopes is an empathetic smile. "You can rest assured though that if I wanted to poison you, I would not do it so brazenly. It will make things much clearer, and our conversation much easier, if you do." 

She stands back up and watches them pull out the stopper. They make the mistake of giving it a sniff before tasting it, and recoil. But they down it regardless, squeezing their eyes shut. 

"Thank you." says the Director, with relief in her voice. She’d spoken honestly when she said that it’d make things easier; specifically for her. (She is well aware of the risks she’s taking in giving King this privilege; they could use this information to harm the Bureau, to harm her. It is a risk she takes with every new member, and like all before she must be prepared to kill this one at the first sign of betrayal. It is not a thought she revels in.)

The halfling, in return, yells one wordless note of revelation, their pupils dilated to a comically large size. 

"Yes, that is the general response." sighs the Director. "Let me know when you've recovered so we may continue." 

They reel, only shortly, before clearing their throat. "Uh," they say. "Wow."

"Yeah, it's fucking wild. The liquid you just drank allowed you to perceive things that which were no longer within your memory, or things specifically obstructed from memory such as myself and my organization." agrees the Director, and with no shortage of impatience cuts directly to the chase. "In seeing that introductions are long past due... I am the Director here, and this is my organization, the Bureau of Balance. And my employees, the ones that brought you and your compatriots in, said your name is King.” With a flick of her wrist an idle chair pulls itself under her and she sits at their bedside. “Is that correct?" 

"Yeah," King nods. 

"Is that your real name?" she asks. King fidgets, those two blue eyes now hell bent on looking anywhere but at her. The answer then, to The Director, is obvious. "No? Anything you say to me will be completely confidential; I appreciate honesty above anything else within my organization, and that includes here." 

But King only wrings their hands and looks at their lap. 

"I see." sighs The Director. "Well, I can't say I'm not somewhat disappointed. I hope that I may earn your trust in the future, King. If not your name, may you tell me what happened down in the Keeper of Keys' castle?" 

This, thankfully, draws an answer from them. After only a moment, King begins to relay the events that had climaxed with their impromptu inoculation. "M'friends and I were just looking for stuff, and the people said that the lord of the castle had some legendary treasure, so we decided to go check it out." King shrugs. "Then we ran into your men." 

“How did you hear about this ‘legendary treasure’?” asks the Director, pulling air quotes. 

King shakes their head. "Friendemone knows about that." 

"Who?"

"Sea Salt. My wizard friend." 

“I see.” The Director holds back another sigh. It feels as though in speaking with King she has instead gotten more questions than answers from them. “Can you tell me what happened after you met my reclaimers?” 

King seems to take a moment to ponder this. “Um. Well. So, we went into the castle thing through the crypt, where we thought the treasure would be, and we started arguing about about whether it's grave robbing or not, and then we heard people... So Stod- our centaur friend, picks us up and starts running? Except something happened, and the way got blocked, so Sea Salt summoned up some water to stop whoever was there? And we got to talking, or, uh, arguing, and said why we were there. And we just kinda teamed up? And went to go fight the guy. And, y'know. Take stuff."

“When you found the Keeper of Keys…” The Director takes a moment to carefully choose her words. “He had this legendary treasure.”

“Yeah. Well, no. By the time we found him he was dead.” King frowns. 

“What happened? How did you escape the Thrall of it?” she can no longer hide her mystified voice behind professionalism. 

King’s frown deepens. Their claws fist the fabric of their clothes. “I… don’t know? I don’t really want to talk about what happened.”

 

So she sighs, this time not preventing herself this piece of disappointment. "Well, thank you for your cooperation. If there's anything you need, please do not hesitate to ask for anything. We have the best healers on duty, as well as a well-stocked guard who will be most willing to serve you to the best of their ability." she turns to go, standing from her chair and allowing it to scooch back in the corner where it had sat before. “Oh, and provided you do not attend to particularly egregious bouts of espionage, we’ll return your items to you as well. Thank you, King, for your time.” 

"Director?" calls King in a small voice just as her wrist touches the door’s lockpad.

She half turns to look back at them. "Yes?"

"Are my friends and your men okay?" they ask, chewing on their hand. 

Director lets out a breath of relief. "They're all fine. There is no safer place in Faerun than here." she gets to the door before they speak up again. 

"Director."

"Yes, King?"

"...Thank you."

But her only reply to that is the sound of her heels clicking across the tile and the swish of her robes as she leaves.

\---

The boys (her boys, she catches herself thinking, with no end to self shame and the careful training of her words) are off to the artificer, she finds out from Avi. They're Leon's problem for now; she can talk to the others they brought in with little interruption. Best to get all this over with at once, then. 

Healer Pearl stands in the doorway of the room that the wizard is staying in- her gaze is stern, her words final. This one needs more time to heal, she says. No door in the Bureau is closed to the Director, but Healer Pearl’s unconquerable will certainly makes this one a difficulty to open. There are few people willing to talk down the Director, but those that do often get their way; Healer Pearl is one of those lucky few, being overworked and understaffed. 

So the Director sighs, rubs her temples, and moves on away from the wizard and their fretting nurse. The third of the trio then, and in honesty the one that intrigues her most.

When she enters his room in the medical ward, the centaur boy is awake, lounging on two beds pushed together and holding a cup of orange juice. His ears perk up when he hears the door open, and he smiles hopefully. But the smile fades when he doesn't recognize the woman walking in, barely containing a question at the tip of his tongue in favor of wincing when a bandaged arm moves too quickly. 

While he fixes himself, and while she calls over a chair, the Director takes a moment to look over the worst off of the three interlopers her men had brought in. It seems that the longer she looks at him the more it's a wonder he's alive- the Director knows her horses, and while she is unfamiliar at best with centaurs she recognizes the direness of a broken leg in any equine. His back hooves have been bent back into position and held there by splints and magic, on their way to recovery. He smells like healing spells and the residual glow of it makes his scarred and freckled skin light up with tiny stars. "Hi!" he says, but his smile is still strained and there are bags under his eyes. His chest is fluttering too with breath that looks hard to hold, and all of a sudden the Director wishes anyone else but her would do this. 

“Drink this.” she says with zero ado and thrusts into his hands the vial of Voidfish Ichor. Unlike King, he doesn’t hesitate to drink it, but he does make an affronted yell at the taste before falling into the small stupor of revelation. 

"Hello," she says once he’s back to lucidity, and watches his grin grow stronger with his dawning realization. "Welcome to the Bureau."

He seems thoroughly amused, or perhaps inquisitive about all this, but hardly concerned. "Hello, miss...?"

"Madame Director will do.” she folds her hands in her lap. “And, you are?" 

"Stod Hestur." he recites with a puff of his chest that doesn’t last long. She makes a note to look up that name when she gets the chance. It sounds familiar- perhaps it’s a name she’d read once, back when she was recruiting members to her aid. She’d asked militias across Faerun for their talented members, but members who would not be particularly missed. Perhaps, then, he had been one of those names. 

She breaks herself out of her reverie. “Well, Mister Hestur-” 

“Stod’s fine!” He waves a dismissive hand. “Hey, where did we say we were?” He looks into his glass of orange juice thoughtfully. “‘Cause, y’know, this orange juice tastes funny, but that might just be because I’m sick, or whatever I just drank.” 

“Yes, I was getting to that. The inoculation of that liquid helps you understand that of which has been forcefully forgotten from the collective memory of mankind.” She gives a little nod. 

 

Stod cocks his head, and for a moment she’s mesmerized by the movement of his ears. He’s searching her face for something; dishonesty, most likely, though he won’t find it. The Director is struck, suddenly, by the thought that this chipper, brash young colt is far smarter than he lets on. “We’re not anywhere where we were when we left, are we?” he says. His voice is still inquisitive, still curious and chipper, but there is something more to it; a recognition of unfamiliarity, and the danger that could bring. 

“No, Mister Hestur. You’re not.” She does not mean to sound so defeated as she does. This is hardly an interrogation, she thinks, at least not on her end. 

“Stod. Where are we, then?” He looks to the far wall, where there is no window. 

The Director sighs. “The Bureau of Balance’s headquarters is on the Lesser Moon.”

At that, the knight’s eyes seem to go starry. He sits up as best he can, and his tail thumps twice against the mattress. “Lurue!”

“Yes.” She says, not unkindly. She’s about to get to more pressing matters, never mind that he believes her word at face value, but Stod interrupts even her thoughts with an exaltation of excited language.

“The- The Knights of the Unicorn, I’m a Knight of that faction, we worship her, she’s our patron! And… And I’m here, on her moon!” 

Oh Selûne, he’s crying. 

“Has she ever been here? Have you ever spoken to her?” He asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s already talking again, this time about the moon itself. “I knew something was up! The orange juice didn’t taste right. That was a dead giveaway, really!” 

“So you’ve said. Mister Hestur, I implore you to gather your wits. I have a real fucking question to ask you and it’s imperative we learn everything we can about the incident in the castle of the Keeper of Keys.” 

Stod’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and he falls silent for a blessed moment. “Uh. Well, that’s simple enough. So, me and my friends, we were in the area, and we stumbled upon this little hamlet, and the villagers were like ‘oh what the fuck a centaur a half orc and, uh, whatever race Sea Salt is!’ and I was like, hey, we’re a travelling trio of nosy do-gooders! Do you have any good for us to do? And they said ‘the lord on the hill might have something, lest you’d rather do labor around town’ so I picked up my pals and headed towards the manor on the hill! And uh, that place was definitely haunted. Like, lightning strikes in the background every time you say the name of the guy living there, haunted. And King is sorta like, ‘nuh-uh’, until I mention that the guy probably is really rich, and their eyes went all wide and I swear I could hear a ca-ching noise! And then--”

“Mister Hestur.” 

Stod falls quiet again with a sheepish smile. 

“Mister Hestur, please tell me about the man known as Ryan.” she can hardly keep the pleading out of her voice now. 

“Ryan? Oh, right, him. Uh… I don’t think he was very nice.” Stod _pouts_ , bless him. “He got the lock thing and turned into this horrifying angel-circle thing? It was really awful. He tried to wish us out of existence. And he sort of did, at first? We were in the castle when it disappeared.” 

“The Castle of the Keeper of Keys… Disappeared.” Repeats the Director, leveling her gaze at Stod. 

Stod nods. “Yeah, uh, something the lock did made the castle, and us, just sort of blink out? We were in this really freaky place that Sea Salt called The Nothing. He also killed what’ was left of Christoph. He just… Poof.” Stod flicks his fingers outwards to demonstrate. 

The Director tries very hard to remain as unanimated as possible when on duty- it is her job to be the keystone of the bureau, an unshakable pillar of emotional stability. But the ability to erase people from existence makes even her blanche. 

“Miss Director?” 

Stod is giving her an odd look, one she can’t place. She feels… suddenly ill. 

“Madame Director.” she corrects. The centaur’s frown deepens. 

“I didn’t know you were married,” he says, but she sighs and rubs her face. She stands up. 

“Mister Hestur, you have my sincerest apologies, but I must be taking my leave.” says the Director. Stod half-smiles, as if he’s trying to figure out if it’s his fault. She’d console him, but that is not her job. Instead, She pushes the chair back into the corner with a flick of her wrist and makes for the door. 

“Madame Director?” he calls.

Not again.

“Yes, Mister Hestur?”

“What happened to Sea Salt and King?” 

This she can answer. “They are in our care as well. I already spoke to King.” 

She hears a sigh of relief from behind him. “That’s wonderful. When can I see them?”

This she cannot answer. 

“Soon,” she says. 

\---

She had doubted before, of course. She had always doubted. If she was on the right path, if she was doing the right thing, in chasing down these Relics. She knew that even searching for them brought the possibility of misuse; one regulator or reclaimer making a mistake, just one giving in to the Thrall, and it’d be over. 

So who was she, Lucretia, to try? Was she really attempting to break a cycle that had gone on, unbroken, since the great War? Every poor soul she’d sent to their deaths chasing these objects, how could she not doubt? 

But the Barrier Lock instills in her new resolve. Yes, she is doing the right thing. Yes, she has reason for shame, she has blood on her hands and lies on her tongue. But the ends justify the means, so she has no qualms, no doubt, any longer. 

By the time she retraces her steps to the second of the party, Healer Pearl has enough sense to step out of the Director’s way and also get the door for her. A blast of sheer cold rustle’s her robes, and she stares in amazement at what this hospital room has become. 

It’s immensely cold, for one, and if Madame Director hadn’t been very much used to not reacting to her environment, she probably would have been severely uncomfortable. As it is, she strides in. There’s a frozen solid IV drip and no one in the bed, which is concerning until she looks up. 

In the upper right hand corner of the room is what she had first glanced over, but now sees a white, blue and yellow mass curled tightly in on itself. The robes of an acolyte flutter in the frigid draft.

“Sea Salt, was it?” says the Director. The wizard’s head snaps up to stare at her, and she starts. 

The eyes looking back at her are yellow and brightly luminescent. Not simply reflective like an animal’s, either; she sees it emitting a steady golden glow. 

“Where’s King and Stod?” they ask. No, the Director thinks, demand. And while they stay curled and levitating off the ground, they do not make any moves that would imply they’re violent. 

“Your compatriots are in fact in rooms on either side of you. Due to the nature of Mister Hestur and his size, it was easiest to put him in a room on his own, and King only recently came out of urgent care. I’ve spoken to both of them, so you can rest assured that they are both conscious and coherent.” 

Sea Salt’s tiny pupils shift; they’re looking at her oddly, waiting for a catch, for a tell. How many times, the Director wonders, have they been through this? 

“Where are we?” they ask, quieter. Softer. 

The Director pulls a vial from her sleeve. “I am unable to tell you until you drink this.” 

Sea Salt stares at it. “Seafood?”

Well! The Director raises her eyebrows. “Jellyfish. How could you tell?” 

“I hate seafood.” She wonders if that’s true, of if they’re being contraire. 

“Please come down.” 

They hesitate, but they sink down to the ground silently in front of her. They don’t even make eye contact, staring at empty air off to her left as their hand reaches out for the vial. 

The Director unstops it and hands it to them. The wizard known as Sea Salt swallows, grimacing with unique revulsion at the contents of the tube. They too are quiet, but somehow different than the polite hushed nature of King, or even the surprisingly observant thoughtfulness of Stod. There’s want behind their silence. Want, the director thinks, to be anywhere but here. “If I drink this, you... won’t hurt my friends?” they say.

Oh. Oh, dear. The scope of Sea Salt’s situation is suddenly extremely clear to the Director, and some close-kept part of her heart dares open up: her maternal instinct. “We--”

 

But Sea Salt downs the contents before she can continue and thrusts the empty ampul back at her. She makes a face- there is ichor dribbling down their face, and they wipe it off on their _sleeve_. Does no one on her hiring registry have any sense of cleanliness? “I was… About to say that we’re not captors. You’re free to see your friends at any time, and we certainly aren’t going to hurt them. Drinking that only allowed you to understand me.” 

At first she’s afraid that Sea Salt hadn’t heard her- they are experiencing a small stupor after all, and she’s about to repeat herself when tears stream down their face. The Director then can only gape as the room thaws out. 

“I thought… I was so worried, after Ryan, and the… I didn’t want them to die…” they babble. “I thought you were gonna hurt us for the Lock.” When they wipe their face, the Voidfish ichor wiped on their sleeve is smeared across their cheek. The Director sighs and hands Sea Salt her handkerchief. 

“If you can, I have one question about what happened in the Castle.” she asks, watching her handkerchief get wiped all over Sea Salt’s face and then to her dismay disappearing into their robes’ pocket. “What was it that helped you avoid the Thrall of the Barrier Lock?”

Sea Salt takes a moment to ponder this. “I didn’t want the Lock any more than I wanted the people I loved and nothing it said could change that. At first I thought I could use it to protect them, because I wasn’t doing a very good job. But even in the Nothing, I had King and Stod, and Magnus and Merle and Taako. I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t have to protect them alone. Accepting the lock would be selfish.” 

The Director gapes. “You’re saying that… The key to the Barrier Lock was some cliché shit like _love_?” 

And Sea Salt smiles, rather wryly, through their tears. “You spoke to Stod and King already, right? So does it really come as a surprise?”

The Director in turn takes a moment to ponder, and realizes that no, between these three and her reclaimers, she cannot say she is very surprised at all.

**Author's Note:**

> This Was Hella Fun To Write! I find the Director to be a very interesting character, and she puts up with a lot. I really really hope she isn't evil. Anyways, I wrote this from her perspective to give her a bit of a spotlight in fanfics, which I haven't really seen yet! I like to think I did her justice.
> 
> This fic features mine and my campaign partners' characters as Bureau interlopers. The lovely King belongs to @k1spiegel and the wonderful Stod belongs to @avpol, over on tumblr! Coincidentally, these two also helped beta this fic. So if there are any remaining typos or incongruencies, that's on Stod and King. 
> 
> Also something worth noting is that in order to make sure this one-shot wasn't filled with plot holes, I had to draft an entire fake arc for the characters to go through just to make sure all the things they said made sense, which was really fun in its own regard! Maybe someday I'll turn it into a whole big thing, but until then, enjoy this piece.
> 
> Kudos and Comments greatly appreciated!


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